Good point--even with natural flowing curves and easements, price was the #1 reason why I went with spline roadbed. All of the spline roadbed you see in the pictures above (I have about 35' of mainline and 15' of siding, so about 50' total) came from one $6 sheet of 3/16" tempered hardboard, and I still have about a dozen splines left over ready to use for the next phase of roadbed. Also, the only waste was the sawdust from the cuts on the table saw. I don't know how much plywood I would have needed for this 50' of roadbed, but it would have been way more than one sheet and way more than $6 per sheet and I would have thrown away most of the sheet material after cutting out the roadbed. The vehicle trains have been hit hard by the recession and the downturn in the automotive industry. In fact, I don't even think Q210/211 run every day any longer. They both usually work the TDSI auto ramp near Atlanta, but several times lately I have spotted some mixed freights working the ramp with a handfull of autoracks tacked on to the end of the train. Jamie
One of the comments I saw when researching splines was that it would kill a sawblade. Mine was well used before I started and I cut about 15 sheets of splines on the same blade and am still using it. It does make a lot of dust. though. The only problem I really had was when planing the tops after glueing was getting the plane off level and accidentally creating superelevations where there shouldn't have been. Most were fixed with a bit of a shim.
Over the last few days I installed the first Tortoise turnout motor on the layout. This is also the first Tortoise that I have ever installed, although this particular one has a bit of history. When my wife and I first moved to Atlanta in 1993, I immediately began building a layout in a spare room of our apartment. Although the layout never got farther than some L-girder benchwork, I actually purchased a Tortoise from a one of my favorite all-time hobby shops, Gandy Dancer's in Chamblee, GA. Well, fast forward 16 years to 2009--Gandy Dancers has been closed for almost a decade and the Tortoise finally comes out of its shell! Yes, as strange as it sounds, I just installed a brand new 16-year old turnout motor. Eventually, the computerized CTC system will be controlling all of the mainline turnouts via DCC, but for now the first one is controlled using a plug in 12-volt DC power supply and a simple DPDT slide switch. Jamie
Jamie... I have studied those last two pics for hours...and I just gotta say: * Pic #1 * 1) Whats with the adhesive oozing out from under the cork trackbed ? 2) And those bolts for the Tourtise...ya could have at least cut em off with a dremel...shessshhhhhhhhh! 3) Speaking of....whats with that front bolt and washer? That washer is nowhere near centered !! 4) A metal staple holding the track feeders? INEXCUSABLE !!! * Pic #2 * 1) Whats with ALL that blue paint from the background doing on the benchwork? ! *shock* 2) The wires on the tourtise....looks like ya dressed the 3 wires on the right nice...then got sloppy with the others. Look how they dont even line up...OMG! 3) Same thing with the terminal strip....I mean come on already! They aint even straight with each other. 4) Then there is that tape job on them temporary wires...WTH! You want people to see that ?... *eyeroll* When I see work like that...It just makes me want to go out to my 'Train Trailer'.......... .....and torch it...LMAO! You do some awesome meticulous work Jamie...Good job !:thumbs_up::thumbs_up::thumbs_up: I was just kiding about the critique btw.... ;-) .
They're coming to take me away, Ha-ha They're coming to take me away, Ho-ho Hee-hee-haa-haa To the funny farm Where life is beautiful all the time And I'll be happy to see those Nice young men in their clean white coats and They're coming to take me away, ha-ha! :tb-wacky::tb-ooh::tb-wink: .
Jamie - for future reference: On the Atlas switches, there is a copper plate under the ties - might even be exposed - on both the straight and diverging section, by the nail hole - which (I dont think) isn't really a nail hole but a great place to solder your feeder! I fortunately discovered this on my first switch and then used it everywhere. Makes wiring VERY easy.
Jim, I did notice the copper strips that are embedded within the ties to power the rails behind the frog. Given my tendency to melt ties much safer than these, I figured there was no way I could solder the feeders there. However, since you have been right on with all of your other advice to this point, I figured I'd give it a try. My soldering skills have improved with lots of practice over the last few weeks and I had another Atlas #10 turnout standing by just in case. As you can see from the photo below, it worked great! Pretty soon you are going to have to start charging me a consulting fee. This is a much better solution than my first turnout because I don't have to remove & reinstall ties to get to the bottoms of the rails. With your method, the feeders will go down through holes drilled in the roadbed just like my flex track. Already test fit the turnot below and it works like a charm. Thanks as always! Jamie
I guess I'm kind of surprised Atlas doesn't tout that feature - I literally stumbled on it, and I'm real happy I did on the first of around 30! I don't lay the wire parallel; I simply stick it in the hole and solder. If it sticks up objectionably I can always nip it off from above. This techniques requires even less iron time and heat... and I do the same with the frog wire. There's an advantage this way on the holes in the cork as well - I drill my standard hole, then let the drill "bottom out", which gives me some wiggle room. It's worked like a charm and I have limited adjustability.
Over the weekend I put down the first 10' of the 14' Emerson passing siding. I am using wood tie track for the siding and concrete tie track for the mainline just like the real CSX does. I am using Micro Engineering code 55 flex track for both. You can really see the difference in the following photo: This photo also illustrates the difference in track height between the siding and the mainline, again built this way to accuratlely represent CSX prototype practices. In the next photo, you can see where the siding currently ends at the location of the future turnout for the Emerson house track: Once I get the trackwork completed in Emerson, I will widen the benchwork so the above scene will be about 4"-6" deeper to allow room for the Emerson house track and the Dixie Highway that runs along the CSX W&A Sub through town. Jamie
Was wondering how you were going to model the concrete ties on the mainline when atlas doesn't make switch tracks with concrete ties. are you going to paint the wood ties a concrete color to blend them in with the concrete ties?? One other detail to check your prototype with is where the wooden ties begin in the sidings. Ive worked on ex SAL track as a conductor in Alabama and our main track had wooden ties but the sidings were concrete. the concrete ties began at the clearance point and where the derail was at. just something to consider in being accurate with a csx prototype.
Thanks for the info Dan. On the CSX W&A sub, the concrete ties are only on the mainline; all sidings and switches use the plain old timber ties. If you look at the prototype, it looks just as it is on my layout. In fact, where there is a grade crossing, the 2-3 ties on either side of the crossing on the mainline are wood, so I will actually need to paint a few concrete ties wood color if I want to be true to the prototype. This worked out pretty good for me, because it would be bugging me if the switches were also concrete and I had to simulate that somehow. Also, the ties on the Etowah River bridge are wood and closely spaced, so I'll be using ME bridge track for that. Jamie
I have read that the prototype does not use concrete ties at switches because of the pounding they must endure. Seems the somewhat flexible wood is better at handling this than is concrete.
Yikes...work has been BUSY (more about that below) so I haven't had much time to post any updates. However, I did finish the Emerson siding and now have the trackwork done from south staging to the north end of the Emerson passing siding, or about 30' of mainline. My 5-year old son and I were able to run a pair of trains and staged the first ever train meet on the layout. Fortunately, video crews were on hand to capture the event: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfxsyt3kAVw"]YouTube - CSX Dixie Line in N-Scale: Emerson, GA[/ame] Also snapped an overall view of the Emerson area of the layout showing all of the completed trackwork so far: The above shot shows how the temporary track in the future helix base acts as the south end staging track for the layout. As for work being so busy, I am about to be out of town for 2-3 weeks doing a product installation, so layout construction will come to a halt for a while. However, I opted to drive rather than fly to the installation site and have several railfan side trips planned in the ten (yes 10!) states I will be visiting. Look for a trip report to start soon. Jamie
Sweet!! I love the angles you shot from and that super-elevation really adds life. Nice dubbing too - I'd put (low volume) flange squeal on my short list of desirable live layout sounds. Have a safe trip, -Gary
After a long layoff, I have continued construction on the N-scale CSX Dixie Line layout. I lowered a section of front board near the south end of the Emerson siding to accommodate the I-75 underpass. The scenery will drop down here to accommodate the interstate and the bridge will be built in place around the existing roadbed: Next, I cut two end panels out of some leftover 1/8" hardboard and painted them the same shade of light sky blue used on the backdrop. These end panels serve as scene dividers that separate the visible areas from the hidden areas of the layout. They will eventually be secured to the benchwork using Velcro so that they can easily be removed to allow for photography. Here is the end panel that I installed where the south end of visible track will enter the helix to the Atlanta staging yard: Finally, just for fun I photographed some purchases that I recently made: The locomotive is the brand new Atlas Dash 8-40CW lettered and numbered for Conrail #6150. I'll eventually patch this out for CSX when I get some spare time over the next decade or so. The two Union Pacific autoracks were picked up to beef up my vehicle train roster, along with a set of Kato BNSF doublestack cars & containers (not shown). It's good to be modeling again! Jamie
